Friday Night Shots – How Much Luck is Too Much Luck?

It’s another Friday night and you’ve chosen to spend a few minutes with me.

I love that! Thank you.

Ok, it could be Saturday morning when you’re reading this, or it could be December 22, 2025.

Who knows?

Pull up a chair in front of the fire (wait, that shouldn’t be on fire…hold on a moment).

Anyway, let me grab you a drink!

It’s lucky you were here to help put that out.

Speaking of luck…

How much luck is too much luck for you in the games you play?

Let’s chat!

Games come with a wide variety of luck in them.

Of course, there’s Chess where there is literally no luck at all (unless you rolled dice to see who get to be white).

Then there are dice games like Wurfel Bohnanza or Can’t Stop where they are nothing but luck!

And playing the probabilities of the dice.

So maybe like Craps.

Most games, of course, fall into a huge valley in between.

Dice games, for example, are inherently lucky (unless you’re not rolling them).

What makes most dice games “good” games are the ability to mitigate the bad luck of the dice rolls somehow.

That can be either a mechanism to allow rerolls (which are also lucky, but again you’re playing probabilities) or, more commonly and usefully, the ability to gain something to modify the pip values of the dice.

Or, like Favor of the Pharaoh, both!

The good thing about most dice games is that they are relatively quick games. Maybe 30 minutes tops.

So if you get unlucky, the game’s going to be over soon and you’re hopefully still having fun.

Then there are dice games with a ton of dice so you are bound to roll what you need in there at some point.

Right?

Titan is a classic 6-player fantasy battler where you go around the board recruiting various creatures into your army and then try to eliminate all other players.

The strength of the creature is how many dice you throw, along with the number of hits it can take before dying. What you need to roll to hit another creature is based on the relative skill level of the creatures.

One of my fondest memories of the game is when I had a Serpent (18 strength/dice and 2 skill) going up against some other creature with a 4 skill level and a high strength value (maybe 10?). When skill is even, you need a 4 or higher to hit. That adjusts based on differences in skill, so a 2 against a 4 requires a 6.

Eighteen dice, but I need a 6 to hit!!! The creature responding to my attack will surely kill my Serpent quickly (it has 18 hit points, so would take 2 rounds, but still).

I chuck 18 dice (chucking that many dice is always fun!)…and roll eleven 6s!!!!

The other thing is killed and my Serpent goes on to kill something else.

It was a great moment.

Anyway, that’s another way for dice mitigation. Just allow people to throw a huge number of dice on the table so they’re more likely to get a result they want.

I had a recent play of Fantastic Factories (with the expansion, which adds vitamins for a little dice mitigation) where one of the players just kept rolling high and thus had no energy to spend (you can only use dice with pips 1-3 to get energy). And dice mitigation via tokens doesn’t really help if you don’t get any buildings that give you those vitamins.

But what about those who just don’t like much luck in their games?

Games like Terra Mystica and its ilk go deep into the “very little luck” category. In that game, I believe the only real luck is choosing first player (just like Chess!) and the order that the round goal tiles come out.

It’s progeny, Age of Innovation does add a bit more luck to the game, but not that much. The race and ability combinations are randomized and then drafted by the players, and I’m not sure if the Innovation tiles are randomized or not.

Funnily enough, I prefer Age of Innovation.

In almost all cases, there is going to be a fair amount of luck in a game, especially nowadays when every game seems to have cards, dice, or some combination thereof.

Even the classic wargames had dice and, even though the Combat Results Table (CRT) had odds based on relative strengths, it was still very possible to roll a “no effect” or, if you didn’t get enough of a ratio, even a bad attacker result.

A lot of current wargames don’t necessarily have dice, but they are card-driven so the shuffling of the cards is the luck mechanism.

And there might be dice as well!

A great example of that from just the other day and from one of my favourite games, is Combat Commander.

I love the game, but if you don’t like luck, this is not the game for you.

How many of my After Action Reports have commented on the inability to draw Movement cards, or Fire cards, or the frequency of Time triggers?

It is a game of skill, don’t get me wrong.

But sometimes bad luck can just torpedo your chances in the game.

Or another one of my favourites, Smash Up.

It’s a card game, so there’s going to be luck.

And sometimes, you just can’t draw any minions to play on a base.

Personally, I like a bit of luck in my games, but I like games with a wide variety of luck levels as well.

Card games are great, dice games are as well, though I prefer some dice mitigation in those games.

Even so, I love me a quick game of Can’t Stop, which is nothing but dice rolling and probabilities.

As long as I’m not stuck playing the same draggy game where my luck is terrible for three hours, I’m set.

What do you think about luck in games? Hate it? Love it? Don’t mind it?

What’s your favourite game where there is a ton of luck?

Let me know in the comments.

This post brought to you Crown Royal whiskey, the number 781, and the letter L (for luck!)